Tuesday, May 8, 2007

I've been a little absent lately - but it's only because I've been using every available second to finishe my current WIP.

And now it's done!

I can’t tell you what a relief it is. I’ve learned so much writing this book. I know I say this with every book, but really – SO MUCH.

Firstly, I started out trying to give my characters some ‘complex conflicts’ rather than a complex plot - a la the Nadia Cornier and Simone Elkeles theory from their workshop at the 2006 RWA conference.

I really love this way of thinking about a book – that if you just set your characters up with complex conflicts they can’t resolve, the plot considerations seem to take care of themselves.

Somehow, of course, in the midst of all those conflicts, I’ve managed to end up with Plotty McPlot anyway, but I’m sure I can balance it out. If I haven’t already.

Secondly – I bought in a few more characters than I’m used to dealing with and that put me on a great learning curve. In my first couple of books, I kept my cast of characters small, because I really couldn’t deal with too much more than that. But this time I’ve got sisters, step brothers, friends, parents of friends all mingling together.Honestly I’m so immersed in this book that I can no longer see it clearly – so time to put it aside for a few days and play with something else.Now there’s a sentence that brings a smile to my face – SOMETHING ELSE!

It’s back to that magical time at the start of a novel when anything is possible, everything glitters, and this is going to be the best story I’ve ever written. Sound familiar?

For me it means lots of lazing around, sleeping and napping. Because that’s where I can find that twilight place between awake and asleep where my most creative ideas come from. In fact the idea for THE YEAR MY MAGIC BROKE came on a warm spring day when I kicked back in my car at lunchtime with the sun shining through the windows and half fell asleep. Half fell asleep and dreamed of a girl who discovered her magical powers by a hot guy’s life (and subsequently turning him into a cat).